Awkward with Animals and The Search for Don Chilo

We left for Canton Las Delicias, a small community outside of San Salvador, hoping to reconnect with many of the community members, have some time out in the countryside, and, most of all, learn how to cook (Mima, our host mother, promised to give us detailed instruction in the course of our stay there). Chickens in hand, we boarded the bus and set off.
As you can tell by the photos, they really trusted us with the bulk of the work.
With time, however, they allowed us to partake in tortillaring (the art of making tortillas). While we were quite proud of our work they, apparently, were not. All of our tortillas were placed on a "special" plate that we were told to eat. Oh well...
The fruits of our labor. DELICIOSA!

After lunch we decided to take a moments rest...some might even be tempted to call it a dog day afternoon. Eventually, however, we rallied and decided to visit our friends in the community: Isabel, Sister Alisia, and Don Chilo. We heard that a loved one in Don Chilo's family had passed away, so we put that visit as a priority and began our pursuit for Don Chilo (an animated storyteller who, years before when I lived in El Salvador, would always pick up Patricio and I and haul us around town). Mima, our trusted guide and cooking teacher, promised us that we would find him.

On our way to find Don Chilo, we stopped by Isabel's house. Tessa, with her bird fascination, kept us fairly entertained at this home. (Tessa had no clue that I was taking this photo).
I wouldn't say that I am a bird fan, by any means, but I did feel like I needed to reach out and engage...
Our next stop was at Hermana Alisia's house. Hermana Alisia is one fire ball of great grandmother. We shared our special magic trick with her (the stick straight hair one) and she tried to replicate it on her own hair (which is a total of four inches long). She then proceeded to force all of her grandchildren into embracing the hairstyle-only one complied.
We then walked to Don Chilo's house, and waited for his arrival. Apparently someone in the family had just passed away, so there was a small church service in the home. We sat down in their living room and participated in the ceremony. All of our friends from the journey waited with us, anticipating the arrival of our close friend Don Chilo. We all talked about what a great man he is and how excited I was to see him again. An hour and a half later, he arrived. As his truck drove up, Mima beckoned me forward, "there he is!" Much to my surprise, this was a different Don Chilo. The proceeding conversation was a bit awkward, because I had to pretend like I knew him well (I didn't want to disappoint all of our friends who had accompanied us on the journey by telling them that this Don Chilo was not, indeed, the Don Chilo that I knew and in turn make them look for another Don Chilo). We returned back to the house and were surprised to find our next door neighbor, Lilian, laughing hysterically...our hair do caught on!